The Concept of “Standard of Living” in Sociology: Evolution of Scientific Ideas

The article examines the evolution of the concept of “standard of living”. Its main periods are distinguished: pre-institutional, institutional and modern. While the former is characterized by the initial formation of the concept’s content and the scientific community’s gradual recognition of the need to define it, the latter is characterized by the actual semantic content of the term “standard of living”, as well as its gradual dissemination in scientific literature, political discourse, and public administration practice to the extent of widespread usage. The current stage of the evolution of the concept of “standard of living” is associated with the increasing complexity of its semantic content and its relationships with related concepts such as “quality of life”, “well-being”, and “prosperity”. The analysis of the dynamics of changes was carried out taking into account their conditionality by the development of social reality and the need to solve acute social problems caused by the contradictions of this development. The main research method was the method of historical analysis.